[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/KeAjc2u.png[/img][/center]
[center][sup]The Road[/sup][/center]

 She slept in the dark and dreamless manner that was reserved for those in comas or the recently deceased. So it was that when Mariah woke up, it was less of a waking and more of a regaining consciousness. Disoriented, sweaty, and a little bit uncomfortably moist, her immediate first instinct was to get out of the car. As the bottom of her bare foot met the hot ass Florida asphalt, her delay in registering the pain, was only overshadowed by her gratitude, for having not stepped on a used meth needle. After sliding her tennis shoes on, which were in a heap along with the rest of her poolside items, Mariah adjusted her hat, slid her oversized fan between the top of her sweatpant-shorts and her hip, then practically shambled into the gas station store.

As salmon know instinctively to go back their spawning grounds, so does Mariah know how to find Takis in a gas station Market. Her half asleep walking lead her with homing precision the chips isle, over to the beverages where she quickly located a cream soda, and finally to the miscellaneous isle where she snagged a single hot mama-- a well aged cucumber, floating in a vinegary salty brine, within its innocent plastic containment unit.  Surely this would be a tasty treat for such a long drive. 

Which come to think of it, Mariah only figured they were driving because she happened to be in a car, in some random point in Florida's unknown midline, at some random gas station. Who was even driving? Had she happened to wake in the middle of a kidnapping? As she approached the check out counter, the dark skinned extremely Indian attendant stared at her in confusion, squinted at her selection of items, and met her apathetically exhausted gaze as she just shrugged at him.  He smirked, shook his head at her, then eyed the security camera footage on a small tube TV, mumbling something about, [b]"So many cowboy hats here at the same time today,"[/b] as he rang up her items.

 Mariah yawned and seeing as nobody else was in the line behind her, she eyed the large selection of lottery tickets, which could be scratched off with a coin to reveal cash prizes. [color=0072bc][b]"WIN BIG"[/b][/color] insisted a sign on the plastic reel bin, which hosted several varieties of scratch-off tickets--costing anywhere from 10 cents to 5 dollars a piece. 

[b]"The fast 5 has been selling like crazy today,"[/b] the attendant advised her smoothly. Pursing her lips for a moment Mariah eventually told him, [color=#F3128D]"Yeah I'll get like twelve then."[/color] What a smile, the attendant went over to the lottery tickets, then began to pull a chain of FAST 555's out of their reel, counting them off under his breath. 

 She passed him two twenties, he passed her back a five and a bunch of coins, then leaned onto the counter, indicating with a tilt of his head, a small wooden podium next to the register, which was covered in the discarded remains of scratch-off lottery tickets.

 With another shrug, Mariah went over to the little podium, opened up her cream soda, then began to scratch off her tickets, with a nickel, as the gas station attendant not so-subtly began making flirty small talk. The gas station door-bell clanged as someone else walked in, but nobody really paid any attention to it.